Arguing Over Symptoms While The Patient Dies

By Russell D. Longcore

(Editor’s Note: The Texas Legislature is having a fight over slot machines, while the issue of sovereignty goes mostly ignored. So gambling looks more promising to Legislators than independence. Texas, your elected officials are bought and paid for. You will not move forward into independence while these sold-out solons are still in Austin The level of thinking and actions that got you where you are now will not take you into secession, liberty and new nation status.)

I can think of no more fitting example of American politics today than one comparing the practice of traditional medicine to politics on both the state and national levels.

Traditional medical practice primarily treats diseases with prescription medicines and surgery. It focuses upon the symptoms of disease and spends most of its time, energy and money on making symptoms go away. For the most universal disease…the common cold…traditional medicine states that there is no cure for the cold. Further, all over-the-counter medicine treats symptoms only, and does nothing to identify and treat the cause of the cold.

From the common cold to heart disease, most traditional medicine only treats symptoms. In the area of heart disease, heart surgery is used to alleviate angina and open or reroute blood vessels that feed the heart muscle. So, a few inches of veins are treated, and miles of vessels and arteries are ignored. And within a few years, the repaired veins are occluded once again, and more heart surgery is indicated. The causes of the heart disease are not identified and treated. And usually, the cause of heart disease is the diet of the individual over a lifetime.

I don’t have to go on with any more examples from medicine. Every person reading this article will have their own medical experiences to remember, or will know someone for whom these comparisons are true.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers lend new meaning to the term “drug pusher.” So simply agree with me that nearly every drug you see advertised in any medium is a symptom reliever, not a cure for the disease it purports to treat. Lipitor doesn’t cure high cholesterol, Coumadin doesn’t cure heart disease, Symbicort doesn’t cure asthma and Viagra doesn’t cure limp dicks. They only treat symptoms.

If traditional medicine spent most of their time on illness prevention and health, very few of the diseases of the 21st century would exist. But helping people prevent illness through lifestyle choices and diet doesn’t pay very well. Is there any wonder why medical professionals concentrate on symptoms? That’s where the money is.

So how does this translate to politics?

Arguably, 75% of the Federal budget is spent on programs that were never authorized by the original US Constitution. And at the state level, much the same thing can be said. Most all states are spending money on things never dreamed of by the people who wrote the state constitutions. So, it could be said that most of the money collected and spent in taxes today is spent trying to treat symptoms of the disease, not dealing with the elemental requirements for government “health” in the founding documents. Legislators have piled on fallacious diagnosis after mendacious diagnosis, leading everyone astray as to what treatments are necessary.

Legislators in states and in DC have layered on hundreds of thousands of new laws and regulations…more every year. No one ever seems to ask whether these acts violate the Constitutions of either the US or the states. The politicians simply wink at each other, and then argue vehemently about which side gets to spend the money on their illegal, immoral laws and regulations.

Rather than taking a position that there should be tax money paid out to some aggrieved party or group for perceived inequities, legislators could have taken the position that the founding document did not provide…even prevented…the payment to or favorable treatment of the aggrieved parties. In medical parlance, legislators could have told the crybabies to change their lifestyles, rather than writing them a tax prescription that masked their symptoms and allowed the crybabies to continue living a subsidized lifestyle.

From the inception of our nation in 1776 to about 1920, the Federal government spent annually about 3% of the Gross National Product. And it is that period of our history in which America went from being a new nation to the wealthiest nation on earth. Today, Washington consumes over 25% of GDP. And now, America has more debt than any other nation, and it’s only going to get worse.

The daily news reports on every TV and radio station tell us about the uncontrollable debt incurred by Congress. We read and hear stories of the 2010/2011 Congressional budget presently being negotiated here in March 2011, even though the Federal budget officially began on October 1, 2010. We are told about non-discretionary spending, like Social Security, and discretionary spending like new road projects and new weapons systems. And the talking heads and their favorite experts prattle on about how bleak the future looks if Washington doesn’t cut spending. And all the new Republicans in Congress can muster is about $60 billion in cuts from a $3.7 Trillion dollar 2012 budget.

Republicans, Democrats and Tea Partiers are attacking each other about cutting spending. It’s just like groups of doctors, each with its own diagnosis for treating the symptoms of a terminally-ill patient, bitterly fighting about whose diagnosis will win. Meanwhile, the patient is being stuck with the bill, no matter which diagnosis prevails. And, the doctors don’t really care if the patient lives, and the patient cannot survive any one of the three diagnoses. He’s sure to die.

When holistic medical practitioners suggest that diet and lifestyle can prevent most illness, they are labeled “quacks” and shunned by traditional medicine.

When someone comes along and recommends that the DC “doctors” and the state “specialists” go back the basics, they are then attacked and accused of practicing “quack” political medicine. Why…the very idea that we should go back to the basics is preposterous! And that attitude mirrors the crisis in medicine in America.

The crisis in the nation’s capital, and most of the state capitals, is that the people that YOU ELECTED with your votes have no intention whatsoever in only spending money on things authorized by whatever Constitution they took an oath to uphold. The crisis in DC and the state capitals is not a debt crisis. It’s not a budget crisis. It’s not a fiscal health crisis.

The crisis in Washington and the state capitals is a refuse-to-obey-the-law crisis.

We can have a discussion later about whether the Constitution has any legal standing. But let’s just go back to the time in which the Founders were still alive.

The US Constitution laid out the parameters of the Federal government’s power and authority in Article I, Section 8. Over the last 230 years, Washington has usurped nearly 100% of the states’ authority to keep Washington in check. When a wild animal slips its chains, it is then free to turn on its captors. When a fire, which can be our servant, rages out of control, it becomes a deadly enemy.

State constitutions require states to balance a budget each year. But balancing a budget is easy. All you have to do is establish your budget, and then go to the citizens and take all the money you need by force. Kings have done that for millennia. But what about the morality of the spending? What about the lawfulness of the spending? And if new laws have been layered onto the constitution that permit spending not originally authorized, who wins?

I submit to you that the Washington Federal Government could be saved…pulled back from the brink of disaster…if Congress would only spend money on the constitutionally-authorized actions in Article I, Section 8. But that would mean canceling:

I submit to you that the states could be saved…pulled back from bankruptcy…if the legislatures and their governors would return to their own constitutions and the authority originally granted.

Here in America, from DC to every state house, it’s getting down to nut-cuttin’ time (like they say on the ranch). And even though I posit above that our nation and our states could survive, we all know that there is certainly no stomach in the Congress or the White House for shrinking the Federal Government voluntarily. And in the various state houses, there is very little leadership, and even less courage, to pare back state government to the size it was, shall we say…100 years ago?

Occam’s Razor tells us that the simplest solution is usually the best and most effective. Reconstructing Federal and state governments would be mind-bogglingly complicated, and I have not even addressed the thousands of lawsuits that would be filed by trial lawyers representing every group that considered itself injured by spending cuts or program eliminations.

The simplest solution to fixing state governments and the US Federal government is SECESSION. And secession will not occur until the state and Federal governments collapse and there is no other choice left but secession.